Introduction

The news today isn't as reliable as you think it is. Some news throw random articles out and say that they are 100% reliable even though they're in it for the revenue. Some people might be talking about something that could be believable but in the end, it's just a conspiracy. The truth can be rather hard to find with all of these news sites, blogs, tv shows, etc.
Although it might be hard to, I've learned how to know if a news source is true or false.

Conspiracy Theory Presentation

 Dr.P decided it would be good for us to come up with a conspiracy theory of our own and try to fool the class with it. My partner and I decided to do a conspiracy theory on the titanic and its sister ship the Olympic. Basically, we tried to convince people that this conspiracy theory wasn't true and you'll see how on the right.

Dr.P's Hoax Website

To start off the project, Dr.P thought it was a great idea to start off the project with a fake website. Me knowing already because I brought up the idea to make a fake website about the fake Indian burial ground in HTHCV. Although I didn't need to do research about it, I can tell you what other people found fishy about it. Some people found the website very fishy because it was weebly and it was made without much information. If a website was made about a topic, they should have their own domain and not have the "free" version of a website creator. I also found out that people were contacting the "author" (Dr.P) of the website because Dr.P made a "contact us" page and it led straight to his HTH email. Overall, it was a good trick while it lasted and it taught us how bad Dr.P is at making a fake website.

Hoax Story
 During the making of the Hoax story, it was rather easy for me because I have some experience lying to people about fake stories in the past (school projects). Me and my partner Jonah made a hoax story about a student that found their teacher on Tinder. We had to refine this thought over and over again until we had a short and powerful hoax. Read our story to the left!
Although we didn't get approved for making the slideshow, it was fun making it with Jonah.

Final Version

(I wasn't able to get the document on because of a glitch)
🔥 Teacher On Tinder 🔥
As Anthony Carson (Sophomore at High Tech High Chula Vista), was bored in class so after Dr.P and made them do a 50 page essay, he decided to make a fake Tinder account,  a well known dating site.
As Anthony went on Tinder, he did not know much at all about the site, all he did know is that it had a bunch of random people from all over the country using to find other people. As he was telling us he came across people that he said were “very strange”, but he would soon see the most unusual thing that he found was his teacher. At this moment he didn’t know if what he was seeing was real, he said to see his teacher on here was, “Surprising, weird, and to be honest funny.”
His first instinct was to show all of his friends and being a 15 year old boy that is exactly what he did. When showing all of his friends they were surprised just like him but they found it hilarious. Talking about it with them they wanted to mess with the teacher. Being how old he and his friends are it was expected of them. They came up with the plan as Anthony posing as a “divorced husband that was looking for a partner to spend the rest of his life with.” Anthony started talking about how he is a teacher as well and how he teaches. As he kept talking to his own teacher over Tinder, the conversation rapidly got deeper and more explicit material was said. She revealed to him that she was a part time stripper.
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/teacher-resigns-after-student-exposes-private-pictures-634480707989

My Story So Far

After Dr.P told us that the "Hoaxing the school" wasn't going to happen, he made us write what we thought of the project. Here's my story explaining the good and bad about the project.

Police Report
Doing a police report was going to help us get a better grasp on the subject of credible/unreliable sources. We had to find out if a character commited suicide or if he was murdered. As you can see, I did my parts in red so you know what I contributed to the report.

Biggest Threat Facing Journalism

After watching a video on Dan Rather's Lectures about journalism, Dr.P made us write an essay on this essential question:
What’s the biggest threat facing journalism right now and what should we do about it?
I still agree with what I wrote because I think if you have your mind set to something, it's really hard to take it off and see the other side of it.

Ad Campaign
My group and I had to make an advertisement on "magical pills" that made you live to be 300. We had to come up with a way that people would think it's real (please if you think it's real seek help) but we kind of made it a funny ad.

Fake News Olymics

In my group for the Fake News Olympics, I was more focused on getting facts and links. I contributed to this by helping out getting some sources and linking them to the document. (Hard work)

Fake News Story + Baloney Detector
I got the idea to make an article on hackers and how they're using wifi to steal your information from personal experience. I didn't know anything else better than coding and hacking so I decided to go with wifi because it's relatively easy to do since I know what I'm talking about. I won't spoil the article for you so you can read it but what I will tell you is that I went through multiple drafts to make it how it is today.

Red Flags

Answer Key
No date for the article
Author is dead
Grammar error on first paragraph
Subheading is suspicious

Exhibiton

(I would strongly recommend looking at Dr.P's vision of exhibition first)
For our exhibition, we decided we would do a cafe like style room where you could come into out cafe and grab a snack and get an article from the whiteboard. We called ourselves Cafe Faux during the exhibition which means "Fake Cafe". We made a baloney detector and you would get an article and go through it and (with the help of the baloney detector) find red flags. A student would also sit down with you and help you if you missed any red flags completing the experience.

I helped out by doing catering and getting people to bring food for the exhibition. Jonah and I made a catering list of all of the people that would bring food and also sent out emails to people who signed up for bringing food. 
Guests were positive on feedback that they had a great time and that they would like to thank us for the experience. I had the chance to sit down with a guest and get to help them find all of the red flags in my article which was fun. It was an interesting experience because it was like putting together a puzzle and finding out what the whole thing meant.

If someone else is going to do an exhibition like ours, I would strongly recommend not to be shy and to make your articles as best as possible and your red flags extremely hard to find. I wouldn't strongly advice making long articles because guests will want to go to other exhibitions and check them out too!